Sea level rise over the next century won’t get a feared boost from Antarctic ice cliffs crumbling into the ocean like dominoes, a new study suggests.
The finding, published February 7 in Nature, is based on a new statistical analysis showing that such a rapid collapse of marine ice cliffs in Antarctica was extremely unlikely to have happened in the past, even during some of Earth’s warmest episodes over the last 3 million years.
The study, by climate scientist Tamsin Edwards of King’s College London and colleagues, counters a controversial hypothesis that suggests that rising greenhouse gas emissions could destabilize those cliffs and help send sea levels surging by over 2.1 meters by 2100. That figure is nearly double some sea level rise projections for the end of the century.